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Michigan State's grit shows it finally grew up in NCAAs win over Miami

TULSA, Okla. -- They were warming up the bus to the airport not 7 minutes into the game Friday. Or they should’ve been, anyway.

Michigan State was that bad.

And tight. And sloppy.

Which wasn’t completely surprising to Tom Izzo. His freshmen-dominated team may have criss-crossed the country this winter to play some of the best teams in college basketball.

But this was still the NCAA tournament. This was a different stage. Stumble and it’s over. A season that began with all that anticipation lost in a fog of inconsistency and turnovers.

From the opening tip against Miami (Fla.), the Spartans looked ready to wilt. Center Nick Ward picked up a foul on the jump ball. If that wasn’t deflating enough — MSU has no true backup behind Ward — the next five Spartan possessions unfolded like this:

Missed three pointer. Turnover. Missed three pointer. Turnover. Foul.

The Hurricanes rolled out to a seven-point lead. Then a 10-point lead. Then a 12-point lead.

The crowd, mostly leftover Kansas fans who’d stayed to watch the night’s finale because their Jayhawks got the MSU-Miami winner, began walking out in disgust. It was ugly.

“I’ve seen enough,” one fan blurted out as he rose from his seat just off the court.

Izzo had, too.

But instead of lighting up his guys, he huddled them together and told them to stick to the plan … and relax. They did. And they started finding the seams in Miami’s matchup zone and hitting shooters in the corners. While on the other end shrinking the space within the Hurricanes’ ball screens.

For the next 30 minutes, the Spartans rolled, outscoring Miami, 73-41, playing their most complete — and mature — basketball of the season and winning, 78-58. What’s more, no one outside MSU’s locker room saw it coming.

Certainly not Miami, who hadn’t seen this team on film. Certainly not the Spartans’ fan base, who’d resigned itself to this tantalizing but ultimately uneven team, and figured MSU’s stay in Tulsa would be a short one.

“Let’s face it,” said Izzo, “a lot of people were kind of upset about things. One thing (I’ve done is) stick with guys.”

He can be stubborn that way. Defiant, even. And it was fair to wonder when the two freshmen who flummoxed him the most — Ward and Cassius Winston — didn’t seem to be on the floor enough.

Because without their best center, without their best point guard, they often played like a team with a young superstar — freshman Miles Bridges — and a collection of role player players searching for roles. Despite the noise, and the stress of fighting to keep the program’s 19-year NCAA streak alive, Izzo kept pleading for patience. Kept telling us this was new for him, too. That he was trying to figure out how coach all that youth.

He began seeing change a month ago. Saw improvement in small areas that didn’t necessarily result in wins. What gave him hope, though, what gave him an idea that a night like this could happen, was what his team didn’t do:

Come apart.

And it didn’t come apart Friday night. When his team retook the floor after the early time-out facing that 12-point deficit, it picked up its defense. Especially Ward and Winston, the two players Izzo and his staff knew they couldn’t win without.

In fact, Izzo told Ward flatly that if he couldn’t do a better job guarding ball screens, “we were going home.”

Ward took the challenge. So did Winston.

Their defensive effort, along with ball-hawking defense from senior Alvin Ellis, got the team running. On the offensive side, Winston orchestrated the pace like a maestro. Bridges started attacking the rim. Matt McQuaid made shots. Then he began making plays off the dribble.

Josh Langford made shots, too. In bunches. He got so hot early in the second half that when he passed up open looks, Izzo howled at him from the bench.

Related:

“I think sometimes Josh doesn’t know how good he can be,” said assistant coach Dane Fife.

We might say the same of the team. At least before Friday night at the BOK Center, before that 30-minute onslaught they put on a helpless Miami team.

“It’s rewarding,” said Izzo. “This was a helluva performance against a damn good team.”

So good, it surprised even him. He knew his guys had the talent. He knew his guys had the togetherness and chemistry and will to learn, too.

Friday night, he finally saw the grit.

“It was fun to see a bunch of guys getting down like that (and then) bouncing back,” he said. “That showed something about their DNA.”

Now, it’s on to Kansas. The Midwest Region’s No. 1 seed.

Now it’s about seeing if these young Spartans can perform like this again. Because as Izzo pointed out, “whatever happens, they proved (something) to themselves.”